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Forage Species In Xinjiang Northern Natural Grasslands: Grasses, Li Bao-Jun

Herbarium Publications

Forage germplasm resources, their distributions, potential agronomic characteristics and genetic aspects of the perennial grasses originating in Xinjiang northern regions are discussed. Grass diversity in the natural grasslands is immense for the range of environments to which it is endogenously adapted. Among the perennial species in the mountain area are summer growing and winter-dormant ecotypes, whereas in the plain outland summer-fast-growing, summer-dormant and winter dormant ecotypes occur. Flowering uniformity within the grass tribe provides the chance for gene exchange. The genetic variation for growth rate, tiller development, regrowth and yield between species and within a species has provided plant breeder …

Plant Germplasm Resources, S. A. Eberhart, H. E. Bockelman

Herbarium Publications

Landraces and wild relatives of crops from centers of diversity have been rich sources of resistance to new pathogens, insect pests, and other stresses as well as for traits to improve food and fiber quality, animal feed, and industrial products. Because very few crops grown in the U.S. are native, plant introductions are vital to our agriculture. The National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) was established to acquire, preserve, and distribute plant genetic resources from around the world so that scientists have immediate access to these source materials. The active collection is maintained and distributed by 19 national germplasm repositories. The …

Evaluation And Utilization Of Biodiversity In Triticeae For Wheat Lmprovement, A. B. Damania, J. Valkoun

Herbarium Publications

To adapt new varieties to a wide spectrum of environments breeders and farmers have emphasized the need for broadening the current narrow genetic base of modern varieties of important cereal crops such as wheat and barley. In response to this need, several thousand samples of indigenously cultivated Triticeae species and their wild relatives have been collected from the centers of diversity. However, gene bank collections are of little use if they are not evaluated and the information disseminated widely. Evaluation is essentially the link between conservation and use. Some of the collected material has been evaluated at the International Center …

Breeding Potential Of Exotic Barley Germplasm, Merja Veteläinen

Herbarium Publications

Utilization of exotic germplasm offers an approach to broaden genetic variability in breeding populations. This study was conducted in order to 1) compare germplasm of exotic origin with adapted Swedish barleys with respect to genetic differences and 2) to evaluate first cycles of pre-breeding i.e. agronomic traits in complex exotic x adapted crosses. Allozyme studies showed the following Nei's gene diversities among parents: 0.13 (adapted parents), 0.16 (landraces) and 0.25 (H. spontaneum). Cluster analysis based both on allozyme and agronomic data indicated that parental groups were genetically divergent. Earliness, straw length, number of ears per plant and thousand …

Triticeae: A Tribe For Food, Feed And Fun, Roland Von Bothmer, Björn Salomon

Herbarium Publications

Triticeae is an important tribe in the grass family, Poaceae. It contains the cereals wheat, rye, triticale, and barley as well as a large number of wild species, some of which are utilized as forage grasses. The tribe combines all kind of biological mechanisms and genetic systems: diploids and polyploids; annuals and perennials, inbreeders and outbreeders, and even apomicts. Due to this large variation Triticeae is an excellent model group for research in genetics, plant breeding, genetic diversity, taxonomy, and speciation in plants.

Triticeae is distributed in almost all temperate areas of the world and consists of some 350-450 species …